Stop This Train
by NuclearNik
Summary: Seven years worth of glimpses into Hermione's life on the anniversary of her birth.


On the day Hermione turned twelve, she hurried up the steps leading to the Gryffindor girl's dormitory, a small package wrapped in butcher paper and twine held tightly against her chest.

She'd been having supper in the Great Hall when an owl had dropped a parcel onto her lap. Upon seeing who sent it, she cleared her plate and ran up the moving staircases to open it in private.

Though she was loving life at Hogwarts and delighted by the learning she was getting to do, she'd always been very close with her parents and couldn't help the twinge of homesickness she felt at being away from them.

Carefully undoing the twine and folding back the paper, Hermione unveiled a letter and a little box.

She opened the letter first, even though she was terribly curious about what might be in the box. Her mother taught her to always open the card first when receiving gifts.

_Dearest Hermione,_

_Happy birthday, my little love. Twelve years old already! My sweet girl is growing into a lovely young woman. I want you to know how proud your father and I are of you. So brave and curious, jumping into a whole new world all on your own. When we received your letter last week, we sat in front of the hearth and read it together. Mittens came in and curled up at my feet. I think he really misses cuddling with you on the sofa. _

_Happy birthday, Hermione. We love you to the moon and back, darling._

_P.S. Be sure to keep up on your dental hygiene. Magic won't keep cavities away!_

She smiled to herself as she read the final words. Her parents were always worried about her teeth.

Setting the letter aside, Hermione opened the little box. Inside she found a beautiful necklace with a pendant in the shape of a star, her birthstone nestled in the middle.

She went to sleep that night with it clasped around her neck, feeling her parents' love for her through the thin silver chain.

* * *

When Hermione is introduced to prejudice first-hand, she is thirteen. A cruel little boy called her a name, made her feel like she was somehow less worthy of magic than him, though she knew that wasn't true.

It planted a seed of doubt.

The content feeling she'd had since attending Hogwarts wavered, and she wasn't sure if she could do it. She wasn't sure if she was strong enough to achieve her goals in the face of adversity.

The day after The Incident, she decided to go for a walk alone. Quidditch practice had started, pulling Harry and Ron away. She found herself on the shore of the lake, watching as the water stirred with movement from the life within it.

She wouldn't let some nasty bully influence her chance at education. She would just keep doing what she'd always done: chase knowledge. She'd just have to work twice as hard to prove that she belonged at Hogwarts, same as everyone else.

When Hermione went back up to her dorm that night, she felt even more confident than she had before.

* * *

The year Hermione turns fourteen, she gets a pet that is all her own. A scruffy, orange part-kneazle with a smushed face and buggy eyes. It was love at first sight.

Crookshanks became hers—hers to love, hers to care for, hers to fight for. And fight she did, often, because there were people—like Ron and his evil rat—who didn't like Crooks, who felt like he didn't belong.

But he _did_. He was a living being that deserved respect, and Hermione would _always_ make sure he received it. When she spent hours hunched over a table in the library, it was Crookshanks that stayed with her, napping at her feet. He didn't judge her, or call her a know-it-all.

He was just there.

Always.

* * *

On Hermione's fifteenth birthday, she was occupied with advocating for the rights of house-elves. She had taken up a table in the corner of the Gryffindor common room, a brightly coloured banner with the title of her organization—Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare—hanging from the front.

The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare—S.P.E.W. for short—had been founded only fourteen days ago. Since then, Hermione had been dedicating all of her time outside of classes and studying to the cause. It was important to her. She could so clearly see that the way house-elves were currently treated was nothing less than slavery, and she could not understand why everyone just turned a blind eye. It was maddening.

She had a jar for donations sitting on the table next to a pile of flyers she had made detailing information she found pertinent.

"Take up the fight for the humane treatment of house-elves! They deserve better legislation."

Realizing that everyone was mostly ignoring her from her spot in the corner, Hermione pushed back her chair, grabbed her badge box, and stood. She marched around the room, demanding the attention of the students that were studying or playing games by getting right in their faces and shaking the box under their noses, imploring them to recognize how unfair the working conditions were for house-elves.

"Only two sickles to join the fight for house-elf rights! This is a chance to personally invest in a better future for living beings just like you and me!"

When it had grown close to curfew, Hermione packed up her supplies and banner and headed back to her dorm. So what if she hadn't reached as many people as she'd hoped? Tomorrow was another day, and nothing could stop Hermione Granger when she set her mind to something.

* * *

Hermione's sixteenth birthday found her with dread and rebellion weighing heavy on her mind.

Voldemort was back—he was really, truly back.

She'd believed Harry from the beginning, of course she had, but there was something so final about seeing the truth first hand. There was something awful about knowing that monster was now walking the earth freely in his brand new body, while the people whose murders he'd signed off on lie dead in the dirt.

Cedric Diggory's body in a limp heap on the ground would be an image forever etched in Hermione's mind.

He'd been a _good_ person. A tragic example of how bad things happen to good people and the incredible unfairness of life.

It was on that day in mid-September that Hermione knew she would do whatever it took to make the wizarding world a better place for future generations. This fight was not confined to Harry, or Dumbledore, or the Order of the Phoenix.

This was her fight, and no one—not the ignorant ministry nor that awful Umbridge woman—would keep her from protecting the magical world she so dearly loved.

* * *

The day Hermione turned seventeen passed by with no pomp and circumstance. It was nothing all that special, she supposed, but it was the day she became of age in the eyes of the wizarding world.

A significant milestone.

Still, there are far more pressing matters to attend to and bringing any attention to herself would be incredibly selfish.

Instead, she decides to celebrate in her own way, by sitting in the window of her dormitory and reading the card her parents sent her.

As she rubbed her thumb over the star on her cherished necklace, now a bit dull after years of wear, she found herself wishing things were different.

She wished that Harry wasn't preoccupied with his obsession with Malfoy, that evil wasn't rolling in around them all like a dense fog, that the death toll wasn't rising.

The night was full of stars, and as she stared up at them, she realized that wishing for a different life was entirely unproductive because _this _is the life that had been given to her.

Sitting there in the window that evening, all alone, Hermione made a vow to put her own desires aside and focus on making Harry's burden lighter in any way she could. She was now able to perform magic outside of school, after all. Surely that had its advantages for their cause.

With a final look at the night sky, she slipped the card from her parents into her trunk and started on next week's homework.

* * *

The eighteenth anniversary of Hermione's birth was just another day to her. She was far too busy keeping her friends alive and searching for shards of a madman's broken soul to waste time on something as trivial as a birthday.

Harry and Ron remembered, though, and she was quite shocked they did. They'd gone to gather more firewood, and when they returned, Ron had a slightly-squashed chocolate cupcake in his palm. It was one of those almost plastic, pre-wrapped kinds. The boys had nicked it from a campsite nearby, their forms masked by the invisibility cloak.

They'd risked being caught over something entirely silly and unimportant, and Hermione made sure to tell them so, just before pulling them both into a hug to hide the tears stinging her eyes.

The cupcake—split three ways— had been divine, and the off-key rendition of _Happy Birthday_ that followed was one of the most beautiful things Hermione had ever heard. For a moment, the three dirty, underfed teenagers hiding there in the forest—in the middle of a war, on a mission to destroy evil incarnate and save the wizarding world—were able to forget about the looming horrors of reality and just be kids sharing a stale cupcake and laughing like they hadn't a care in the world.

That night, when it was her shift for lookout, Hermione did something she hadn't allowed herself to do in a very long time—she thought about the what-ifs. What if Harry truly _was _the saviour? What Voldemort's reign of oppression would really end, and they'd get out of this alive? What if they were all given a chance to grow up? What if she and Ron got married someday and had children of their own? She closed her eyes for just a second, imagining all the happy things that may never be.

In the still, dark night, she heard a twig snap, and she startled, shaken out of her dangerous thoughts.

She grasped her wand tighter and jumped into a defensive stance, eyes scanning the trees. Her lungs burned from lack of air, but she didn't dare breath for the slightest noise could catch the attention of whatever it was that was lurking in the shadows.

Something grey caught her eye, and she realized it was a jackrabbit. Just a small animal hopping through the forest—that's what she'd been afraid of.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out in a rush, Hermione sank onto the log she'd been seated on, mind going back to the what-ifs.

_What if there is no future?_

* * *

A/N: Happy birthday to the multi-faceted character that means so very much to me. Thank you for reading! I'd love to know your thoughts. Constructive criticism is always welcome.


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